Okorocha, Ikpeazu, Ishaku Win Guber Election Re-run in Imo, Abia, Taraba

•    PDP's Ighoyota Amori is Senator-elect in Delta

Imo State governor and candidate of All Progressives Congress, Chief Rochas Okorocha, was early this morning declared winner of the governorship election in the state by the Independent National Electoral Commission. In the other two states where supplementary governorship elections also held saturday, the governorship candidates of Peoples Democratic Party in Abia and Taraba states, Dr Okezie Victor Ikpeazu and Mr. Darius Ishaku, respectively, also won, going by results collated and declared by INEC at the time of going to press. This followed the addition of their scores from yesterday’s supplementary elections to the figures they had garnered after the main election on April 11, which INEC had declared inconclusive.

Okorocha scored 416,996 votes to defeat the PDP candidate, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, who polled 320,705 votes. Okorocha was declared winner by the State Returning Officer, Professor Ibidapo Obe, who is Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Ikwo, Ebonyi State.

In the senatorial election in Delta Central, Ighoyota Amori of PDP won the election, polling 115, 000 votes to defeat his closest opponent, Ovie Omo-Agege, of Labour Party, who scored 53, 000 votes. Amore was declared the senator-elect. Amori polled 2, 981 votes in Ughelli South, while Omo-Agege polled 681 votes. In Sapele, Amori got 8, 864 votes, Omo-Agege got 1, 541. In Udu, the PDP candidate got 9, 194 votes, while his LP challenger got 3, 956 votes. In Uvwie, Amori got 4, 819 votes, while Omo-Agege got 2, 366 votes. In Okpe, the PDP candidate scored 8, 613, while the LP candidate got 2, 022 votes. In Ethiope West, Amori got 172, while Omo-Agege had 12 votes. Also in Ethiope East, Amori scored 14, 142 votes, while Omo-Agege scored 7, 168 votes.

The results announced early this morning by INEC showed that Okorocha led Ihedioha in 20 of the 23 local government areas where the supplementary polls took place in Imo State. Okorocha won in Nkwerre (APC 255, PDP 164), Oru west (APC 395, PDP 129), Okigwe (APC 603, PDP 76), Orlu (APC 687, PDP 179), Ihitte Uboma (APC 131, PDP 66), Nwangele (APC 271, PDP 55), Orsu (APC 471, PDP 218), Njaba (APC 1095, PDP 236), Obowo (APC 697, PDP 505), Ow. North (APC 674, PDP 620), Onuimo (APC 412, PDP 207), Ohaji/Egbema (APC 1210, PDP 996), Owerri West (APC 1342, PDP 793), Ehime Mbano (APC 604, PDP 393), Mbaitoli (APC 3997, PDP 2422), Oru East (APC 7154, PDP 1168), Ngor Okpala (APC 416, PDP 323), Isu (APC 2773, PDP 979), Isiala Mbano (APC 1415, PDP 1000), and Oguta (APC 5030, PDP 1378). Ihedioha won in three local governments, namely, Ezinihitte (APC 213, PDP 715) and Aboh Mbaise (APC 686, PDP 939), Ikeduru (APC 786, PDP 1022).

Okorocha had polled 385, 671 votes, while Ihedioha scored 306, 142 votes at the main election on April 11. That gave a difference of 79, 529 votes between the highest scorer and the runner-up, and the number of cancelled votes was 144, 715. The election was declared inconclusive by the INEC Returning Officer in the state, Obe. After the supplementary election, APC had 31,326 votes while PDP had 13,624.

The Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) stipulates that where the number cancelled votes exceeds the difference between the number of votes polled by the candidate who comes first and the person in second place, a winner cannot be declared until the conclusion of a supplementary election in the areas affected by the cancellations.    

Results, as announced by INEC, from the eight local government areas of Abia State where the supplementary governorship elections held showed that in Aba North PDP got 754 while APGA polled 857; in Ikwuano PDP 1,748, APGA 2179; Ohafia, PDP 2,479, APGA 326; Isiala Ngwa North, PDP 60, APGA 60; Aba South, PDP 722, APGA 2536; Ogwunagbo, PDP 1893, APGA polled 1289; Umuahia South, PDP 1377, APGA 4184; Umuahia North, PDP 1,899, APGA 2,376, and Osisioma, APGA 5,322, PDP 1668.

The Collation/Returning Officer for the Abia State governorship the election, Professor Benjamin Ozumba, had on April 12, announced that the governorship elections were inconclusive and subsequently rescheduled in some polling units where either did not hold or were cancelled due to irregularities. But Ikpeazu had polled 248,459 votes against Otti’s 165,406 votes after the first election on April 11, making a difference of 83,053 votes, while 177,000 votes were cancelled – which was more than the vote difference between the top candidate and the runner-up. This had necessitated the supplementary election.

In Taraba State, as results of the supplementary election continued to trickle in, the governorship candidate of the PDP, Darius Ishaku, was steadily consolidating his lead in the April 11 gubernatorial election, which was declared inconclusive by INEC. Going into yesterday's supplementary election which was conducted in 218 polling units, Ishaku was ahead of his main challenger, Senator Aisha Jummai Alhassan of APC by 54, 812 votes.

Results announced from the various polling units across the 10 local government areas indicate that PDP won in Kofar Sarki in Takum local government by 588 votes against seven votes polled by APC.
In Daka polling unit in Takum, PDP polled 378 while APC scored 110 votes just as PDP scored 178 against APC’s five votes in Rafin-Kada ward in Wukari local government.

At Asibiti ward in Donga local government, PDP scored 4,412 while APC scored 604 and in Akete ward still in Donga local government, PDP polled 2,065 votes in 11 out of the 12 polling units collated while APC scored 1,506.

Also at Suntai Daaji in Donga local government, PDP garnered 1,139 votes against APC’s 74 votes, while at Nyitan ward in Donga, PDP scored 4,304 while APC scored 199 votes.  In the only polling unit where election was held in Yorro local government, PDP scored 469 while APC polled 34 votes.

At Muhammed Tukur polling unit which was the only polling unit where election was conducted in Jalingo local government, APC polled 362 votes while PDP polled 90 votes while in 17 out of the 20 polling units in Bali local government, PDP polled 5,370 votes while APC polled 750 votes.

The PDP candidate is also leading in Karim Lamido local government where the acting governor of the state, Alhaji Sani Danladi, hails from just as PDP is leading in all the four polling units in Ussa local government.

The total number of registered voters in the 218 polling units where the election was conducted is127, 125 and based on the low turnout of voters, the number of accredited voters in the election is not expected to be more than 50 per cent of the registered voters.
The local governments where the additional elections were held are Donga, Bali, Takum, Karim Lamido, Kurmi, Yorro, Ussa, Wukari and Zing.

Though, security was tight in the parts of Taraba, Imo, and Abia states where supplementary governorship elections held yesterday, very few voters participated in the exercise meant to conclude the process for determining those who would govern the states for the next four years.

INEC had said on Friday that the supplementary elections will hold in 51 Registration Areas in nine local government areas of Abia State; 79 RAs in 23 LGAs in Imo; and 32 RAs in 10 LGAs in Taraba. But the election in Abia State took place in eight local government areas, comprising 274 polling units. INEC’s head of voter education/publicity, Mr. Edwin Enabor, explained that Umunneochi Local Government Area was “erroneously” included among the areas designated for the supplementary poll.

The low turnout of voters was so widespread that in Abia State, town criers had to use wooden gongs to try to mobilise voters to come out and vote. That was the situation at Agbo village in Ibeku East II state constituency and other places. The town criers went to work when it was noticed that three hours into the official time for the commencement of accreditation, voters were not coming out to be accredited at polling unit 007.

At Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU) in Ikwuano local government, voters at polling unit 007 were voting for the third time since April 11. One of the voters, Mr. Isaac Onwuegbulam, told THISDAY after accreditation that they had voted “peacefully” on April 11 only to learn later that it was cancelled. He said the voting was repeated on April 12 “but later we heard that ballot boxes were snatched,” hence it was again cancelled. He said voters in the area had become fatigued.

Generally, however, the supplementary elections went peacefully, despite the tension and threat of violence that preceded the polls in some places. There was tight security with partial restriction of vehicular movement, especially in the designated areas for the supplementary polls.

In Taraba State, six units of the Police Mobile Force from neighbouring states were deployed to the state, in addition to an unconfirmed numbers of soldiers. The security personnel moved around the state capital in a show of force. The Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) in charge of finance and administration at the force headquarters, Mr Hillary Opara, led two other Assistant Inspectors General of Police (AIG) to the state to provide security for the election